News

Former Grateful Dead Manager Jon McIntire Passes Away at 70

Photo via Dead.net

We are saddened to report the news that former Grateful Dead manager Jon Mcintire has passed away. Following a long and hard-fought battle with throat cancer, Mcintire died at his home in Stinson Beach, CA yesterday evening at the age of 70. McIntire served as the Grateful Dead’s manager from the late sixties to the mid-eighties as well as manager for New Riders of the Purple Sage.

Dead lyricist Robert Hunter shared the following poem last night as a tribute to McIntire.

For Jon McIntire, a Word or Two

What word will do
to gesture toward
the dark gathering
of mutual mystery,
said of the unseen
by saying nothing?

Beyond utterance,
speechlessness
hoping to be heard
by a keener ear,
before any word
was ever spoken,
dies broken like night
by a single shaft of sun.

Silence past Summer,
unmurmuring Spring,
Autumn unmentioned,
Winter, mute, or that
other season: Humanity
wherein we dwell,
listening, listening,
sometimes ceasing
to mere appearance.

Not far to go,
a simple step
into forever. . .
Off then, goodnight,
into sheer light
beyond any season
known to the moon.

February 16, 2012 Robert Hunter